Lonely Enough to Love (2020)

Very deep and touching

After reading the mixed reviews saying it was either terrible or the best drama ever, I really didn’t know what to expect. But I figured with only 10 episodes I didn’t have much to lose. I was pleasantly surprised at how really good this drama is. But looking at a lot of the comments I suspect many people rated it low and even dropped it because the female lead didn’t choose the guy they wanted her to. Too many dramas nowadays choose a super handsome actor to play the second male lead and then make his character unbelievably perfect. Then the dramas ratings suffer because of it. But don’t fall into that trap. This drama is really good. And even though the romance is great, there’s much more to it than the love triangle (which really isn’t a true love triangle since the FL never shows any romantic interest in the SML).

This show has great comedy, sweet romance, tremendous character growth, and delves into some pretty deep subjects. It deals with forgiving a parents past betrayal, the hardships of dealing with a mentally ill parent, the pain of divorce, and the devastating effect infertility can have on a relationship. It teaches us that even though you can be surrounded by people you can still be very lonely. And that happiness isn’t something that you chase after because it’s already in you. You just have to find and nurture it.

The premise of this drama is that there are several men and women living together in a co-living house where they have their own separate apartments but share all meals together in the shared kitchen/dining area. They also share a laundry room, living room and library. So there’s lots of shared living spaces to interact with one another. The story follows their lives. They are all emotionally damaged. Some were hurt by failed marriages. Some were hurt by their parents or family members. But their friendships with one another are what heals them.

They realize that eating with each other isn’t just about filling hunger. It’s about sharing warmth with another person and filling the lonely void within themselves. And when the male lead said he put the smiley face sticker on his door and looked at it every morning in order to practice smiling at everyone, it really touched me. He had moved into the shared home to learn how to interact with others and to try to be happy. So when he tells the female lead that he doesn’t have to practice smiling anymore since he met her because now it comes naturally, I just melted.

The other thing that really stood out in this drama is the bromance. The two male leads were just too cute together. They bonded over their mutual crush on the female lead. This isn’t your typical love triangle where the two men hate each other and do sneaky underhanded things to each other. In fact, their bromance was so good I got boy love vibes from them. Their little chases around the room and late night chat sessions in bed were adorable. (They end up rooming together for a while.)

Overall I would highly recommend this drama. It’s both deep and touching yet refreshing at the same time. It should definitely be rated much higher. Ignore the mixed reviews and watch it. You won’t regrets it.

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Inadequate Enough to Disappoint...

I don't know if it's a bad year or just my bad luck, but so far every single k-drama I've watched has fallen short of my expectations and this one tops that list. The trailer for lonely enough to love was pretty intriguing. The thing is I've liked Kim So Eun since I first saw her in Boys over Flowers where she played the FLs bff and I loved her pairing with one of the F4 more than the main cp. Since then she had done alot of lead roles which were not bad but were just not diverse enough (she always plays the unlucky girl role where she's either unlucky in love or work or both). So when I saw the trailer where she looked all dressed up (like an adult) and professional getting hit on by 3 guys I was really excited. By the looks of it (and the sound of the title) I assumed that her character was that of a professional woman who is successful in her career but not so much with relationships and she gets courted by 3 guys (a guy she just met, her bff/her ex and her co-worker) who she considers dating simply because she feels lonely but later ends up falling for one of them.
I could not have been more wrong. I don't know why but somehow she ended up playing the same unlucky woman role who seemed to never have had any relationship ever, and lost both her job and her house in the same day. She ends up living in her friend's room in a share house where she meets all the other characters.
The ML, Kang Woo was a psychiatrist who was one step away from being a psychopath. His behaviors were almost stalker-ish and not in a cute way. He was too nosy and got into people's businesses without caring about their feelings or the consequences and got offended when someone did that to him.
The SML Hyun Jin was better but only by a little. His sudden interest in the FL was not very believable mostly because they had been friends for years but he only noticed her as a woman after he broke up with his gf and they started living together (which didn't seem very genuine to me). I did not get Second male lead syndrome because of this and also because since ep. 1 there were so many typical k-drama clues that indicated that the FL was gonna end up with the ML.
The FL Na Eun was a pretty miserable character. She had progressively more unfortunate incidents happening to her which just prolonged her unhappy mode throughout the series. I understood why she was unsuccessful as a writer. She thought she was a good writer based on the reviews of just her friends, she lost all common sense when she was offered a deal (which is why she got conned), she asked for pointers on her work from other professionals and got all depressed when she was criticized by them or when she got hate comments on her posts (in any profession especially one where you will become famous, you'll always have haters and if you let it get to you then you won't survive). Most of her principles seemed fake to me (it was as if whatever she said, she only followed it when it suited her, like she kept saying that she wanted to be successful on her own without the MLs help but when her friend helped her she was ok with it).
Apart from these 3 most other characters just felt like fillers.
Dong Seok and Ah Reum had a pointless romance. Their characters barely had more than 5 scenes together but they somehow ended up together.
I liked Kyung Won's story and character but it just wasn't explored. Bo Ra's character was good but she had no story. Same with Ji Hoon.
Ji Ah and David's story was by far the best. I absolutely loved their chemistry and relationship development (they were better than the lead couple).
Jung Hoon was a good character with the most amount of potential. Unfortunately not only his character wasn't developed enough, his story was also pretty vague leaving me with a lot of questions (It was hinted that he might be gay but never clarified, which I would have liked since I love BLs).
The plot got progressively worse and the Finale felt like it was taken from a 12 year old teenage girl's diary.
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone and wouldn't even mistakenly re-watch it.

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